Preparing to move out of the country? Some things to consider

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Well, unfortunately I don't have the luxary of hitting a pause button on my life here while simultaneously preparing to move to Costa Rica - so my blog entries are a bit on the lean side. I am very much hoping to change that once I'm moved and settled - fingers crossed. Luckily tonight I had an extra few minutes to catch you all up on my progress. It has occurred to me, as my husband and I have been working hard to get ready to go, that the things we're researching and arranging wouldn't be exclusive to moving to Costa Rica specifically. So if you are looking for a general checklist for how to relocate to another country, here it is in a nutshell.



1. How can I live there, legally for 1 year? My husband and I researched this and talked with others who've moved to Costa Rica recently and as it turns out there is no "just want to live there for 1 year" residency option. So I do not plan to apply for residency. Instead I will be there as a tourist. For me to do this legally, I can only be in Costa Rica for 90 days at a time. Then I will need to leave the country for 72 hours before I can return. My husband is planning his visits to coincide with these 'visa renewal' dates so that he can join us on some fun adventures to either Nicaragua or Panama. I am really hoping to use these little mini-vacations as a way to explore some new places and am really looking forward to them.



2. Where should I live? For this, my choice personally wasn't too hard because of my family connections. The fact that my relatives are realtors also made this super easy for me. But you wouldn't need to know a realtor personally, or be related to them, to get their help in finding a place to rent. For myself, I really wanted a house with at least 3 bedrooms and wanted it to be close to the school. When a house became available, my realtors helped negotiate a lease for me and sent lots of pictures so I could check it out. I asked about whether there was a washer and dryer at the house. There is a tico-style washer (think washing machine except a little more involvement from you) and a hook up for a dryer. I asked if the house had internet - that's being installed next month. Also, as I mentioned previously, the house has a pool. I've never owned or maintained a pool so my husband arranged to have someone come and maintain the lawn and pool. Whew.



3. Transportation? Costa Rica actually has some very affordable and good public transit options. There are tons of taxis to get you around as well as buses. But, since I'm planning for an extended stay I've decided to purchase a car (SUV actually) when I get there. If you are going to own your own vehicle in Costa Rica, or anywhere else, there are a few things to consider. The cost of importing a car to that country vs buying a car once you get there. (We went back and forth on this one and while some people recommended that we purchase a car in the US and ship it, without any concrete cost estimates for the import taxes, etc we decided against this.) You'll want to be aware of what costs to expect when buying a car, what it costs to insure the car, repair the car and what taxes are owed. All in all, many forums recommended against buying and owning a car in Costa Rica because of how expensive it is. This is probably an American standard that I'm bringing with me, but I'm really used to having my own wheels so we're planning to get a car anyway.



4. Where should the kids go to school? One thing I accomplished since my last post - the kids are finally registered as students at the school we picked. Filling out the forms (all in Spanish) took me a little while, and lots of using Google translate, but I got it done. Now we need to shop for some books and some shoes. (Apparently these items are available here for less than what they cost in Costa Rica.) The school requires uniforms, one more first for the kiddos, and the pants in particular need to be custom made for each student. So, the first thing we'll be doing upon arrival is buying material and ordering pants - exciting! Having some foreknowledge of the public school system in Costa Rica from previous visits, we decided to choose a private school that my niece and nephew have attended. I'm not necessarily judging the public system as bad, but I know it lacks the kind of resources that we take for granted here in the U.S. So, in an effort to keep my kids learning at the pace they are used to we opted for the private school. Plus, the private school we chose is a bilingual school so the kids there are able to speak and understand English, which seemed like a nice option for us.



5. Bank accounts, credit cards. Not wanting to having to pay tons of foreign transaction fees or be forced to carry around large wads of cash to pay bills, we decided to look into opening a bank account. Apparently the requirements are very strict and vary bank by bank. It looks like I'll probably have to open a joint account with a relative there who already has an account. We did some research on what kind of fees we'd pay for using our credit cards - looks like 3%!w(MISSING)ill be our fee per transaction. This would add up over a year so we went shopping for some different cards but unfortunately didn’t really find any better options. Some cards have a lower transaction fee, but then charge an expensive annual fee. Our bank card only charges 1%!s(MISSING)o that helps a little (shout out to Affinity Bank here for being awesome) but we're still hoping we'll be able to have a bank account there for bill paying.



6. Cell phones, TV and other smaller but important considerations. Like many of you, I already own a cell phone. But said phone will not work in Costa Rica so my new phone has been ordered. Anticipating that people coming to visit us will likewise have non-working phones while in Costa Rica we bought a second phone that will serve as the kids' phone / home phone / visitor phone. I completely owe being prepared for this to my husband, as I probably wouldn't have thought much about whether my cell phone would work there. For television we got a recommendation from our relatives to order USA TV so that we could continue to watch content from here while we're there. I've rejected this idea. I do plan to take a TV and Bluray player with me but am going to take my chances with trying to get in some local channels. My husband warns me that my new TV purchased here may not be compatible with the broadcast signal there, but if that's the case then I guess I'll just have a nice movie viewing and gaming monitor. That's okay with me. I already know what the super markets are like and how to cook some typical Costa Rican foods but these would be some things worth researching ahead of a move as well. These are just a few examples of the smaller details to consider. Certainly our move doesn't hinge on these things but I'm sure that something is going to try my patience when I get there so eliminating a few headaches ahead of time is worth it.



Well, before long it will be time to start packing and this brings with it a special kind of anxiety for me - what shoes to bring. I will be devoting a special post to this dilemma very soon. Here's the crux of my problem - usually for a 3 day trip I pack no less than 5 pairs of shoes. Now I'm packing for a year and have 1 army sized duffel bag to fit all of my shoes and clothes into. See?!? This is going to be difficult.

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